Gordon Freireich: A different train of thought

We were asked to babysit our 7-month-old granddaughter in Philadelphia the other Sunday.

Driving back and forth to Philadelphia is not one of my favorite activities. It takes almost two hours to get there, only to spend a few hours and then another two hours to drive back to York.

When I first started driving to Philly, I took Route 30 to Route 222 in Lancaster to the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the Schuylkill Expressway (a misnomer, if there ever was one) to downtown Philadelphia. Two times we were backed up on the Schuylkill on a Sunday morning to just about the turnpike exit. The cause of the massive delay? Tree trimming along the highway, which narrowed the heavily traveled road to one lane. I was so frustrated I almost had teeth marks on my steering wheel.

That led to my alternate route: Route 30 (hopefully not tourist season around Lancaster) to Route 41 to Route 1 to Route 322 to I-95 and then to downtown Philly. The mileage and the driving times are just about the same, but minus the stress of the turnpike and the Schuylkill.

But it is still almost two hours, no matter which way we go.

"Why don't we take the train?" my wife asked about our latest trip to Philadelphia. She has been taking the train back and forth to Philadelphia one day a week to babysit for a few months.

"But that is so expensive," I responded.

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"No it's not. With the cost of gasoline for the car and our Amtrak discount fares, it's not that much more expensive. Even if you factor in the cost of the taxi from the station to the house, it's still not too bad." Then she threw in the clincher: "And you'll be more relaxed and enjoy playing with the baby."

So we ordered the tickets online, drove to the Lancaster train station, found a parking spot ($5 to park all day), boarded the train with a lot of Phillies fans who were going in for a baseball game that day, found seats facing east (don't like riding backwards), and settled in for the ride.

Trains by their very nature -- swaying a bit and clicking along -- are relaxing.

Industrial and then suburban and then rural Lancaster County rolled by the windows.

Chester County came into view. That was followed by additional rural vistas before we rolled past the quaint towns along the Main Line leading to Philadelphia.

In just over an hour we emerged into the impressive and spotless Philadelphia terminal with its coffered ceiling and memories of the early scenes from the film, "Witness."

We walked by more food stands than in a shopping mall, exited next to the soaring World War II memorial, and hopped in a cab to the house.

I was relaxed. We took our granddaughter, Izzy, with us to lunch at a restaurant in the neighborhood and then took advantage of the beautiful day to push her stroller through Rittenhouse Square.

On the train trip back to Lancaster, I kept thinking:

How sad it is that passenger trains no longer stop in York.

As a youngster, I would walk the six direct blocks from my home on South Duke Street to the train station on North Street. It was fun to watch people getting on and off the train or simply wave at the engineer as the train rolled by.

Another bonus: walking through the tunnel (now covered over) that linked the northbound and southbound tracks.

There was even the small "Dinky" train that would connect York to larger stations.

Today, passenger trains in York are a fading memory.

The future of the Stewartstown Railroad is still in question.

York-based Steam into History, which plans to be in operation next year for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, is still a number of months away.

For now, passenger train service in York is only a whistle stop in my memory.